chips

IBM turning to water for cooling its processors

Paul Mah — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:55:05 -0400

IBM, this week, demonstrated how it uses water to cool three-dimensional stacks of processors. While still years away from production, this technology could well be implemented for its multicore servers as early as 2013. This method is heralded as being able to reduce power consumption as well as dramatically improve performance, but brings along with it intractable heating and cooling issues. By creating 50-micron channels between stacked chips, IBM is able to cool down the stack at a rate of 180 watts per layer.

The company obviously believes that water cooling is the ideal solution to stacking processors together. In fact, IBM's paper on this topic, "Forced convective interlayer cooling in vertically integrated packages," received a Best Paper award at an IEEE conference.

For more on water-cooled processors:
- check out this The Register article

Quad-core CPUs heating up

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:58:41 -0400

No, quad-core chips aren't heating up literally--though they do get quite hot if your case isn't properly ventilated. Rather, the quad-core CPU market is heating up, thanks to price cuts and a number of different parts on the market. Intel has sold 10 million quad-core chips since their introduction in late 2006, and AMD is expected to announce that it has sold 1 million of its quad-core parts shortly. Sure, quad-core CPUs still represent only about 3 percent of the overall market, but with more and more businesses turning to x86 servers, you had better believe that figure is going to grow. “I don’t think anyone had imagined how popular the low-cost quad core server parts were going to be at the time,” said Dean McCarron, Founder and Principal at Mercury Research.

For more on the quad-core market:
- see this ZDnet article

First look: AMD's 45nm Shanghai

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:57:26 -0400

We all knew it was bound to happen sooner or later: as the DailyTech headline proudly announces, "The Megahertz Race is Now Officially the Multi-core Race." If you're an AMD fan who felt burned by the performance and production issues that plagued the company's recent Barcelona quad, you'll be glad to hear that it's stepping its game up with a next-gen CPU, code-named "Shanghai." Like Intel's Xeon and Atom lines, Shanghai will be produced using a 45nm manufacturing process, a first for AMD. What's more, it will sport the HyperTransport 3.0 clock generator that was conspicuously absent from Barcelona. The real fun, however, comes in the core count that Shanghai will bring to the table. The first Shanghai CPU to hit the market likely will be "Istanbul," a Shanghai-derived "native six-core" chip that will face off against Intel's six-core "Dunnington." But that's not the interesting part. According to DailyTech, AMD will abandon its "native core" rhetoric a few months later, opening the door to chips with more than one core per die. That, in turn, could lead to a twin-die, 12-core Shanghai derivative. Exciting stuff, indeed. But having been burned by AMD plenty of times in the past, we have to wonder if the company will be able to get these products out on time. Will Shanghai join the ranks of previous AMD parts that were too little, too late?

For more on Shanghai:
- see this DailyTech article

Intel announces 6-core CPU

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:59:58 -0400

Sure, some companies are just now getting on that quad-core, 45nm bandwagon, but that isn't stopping Intel from moving to 6-cores on a single CPU. "Dunnington," as it's currently being called, will be the world's first 6-core chip, will sport 16MB of L3 cache and will be manufactured using Intel's 45nm process. More exciting, however, is Nehalem, which we've been hearing about for some time now. While Dunnington is based on current Intel CPU architecture, Nehalem is set to represent a huge step forward, toward a totally scalable, 45nm architecture. The idea is that the core Nehalem chip (pardon my pun) will be a quad-core part that can be used to create CPUs that will scale from two cores all the way up to eight cores. Thus, Intel will be able to launch server, desktop and laptop chips based on Nehalem, which should lead to more new chips, more often. What's more, Nehalem supports Simultaneous Multi-Threading (each core can run two threads simultaneously) and up to DDR3-1333 RAM, has 8MB of L3 cache and Quickpath interconnects and boasts four times the memory bandwidth of the current top-of-the-line Xeons. When can we expect it? Both Dunnington and Nehalem are scheduled to arrive during 2008.

For more on Intel's 2008 roadmap:
- see this Ars Technica article

AMD demos 45nm CPUs

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:59:56 -0500

It's been a long time coming but AMD finally got real with its 45nm lineup this week, more than a full year after announcing that they were developing CPUs that would be manufactured using a 45nm process. The company showed off two quad-core chips at the CeBIT conference in Germany--one server part and one desktop chip--both of which will ship at some point during the second half of 2008. At the moment, the server chip is going by the codename "Shanghai," while the desktop part is referred to as "Deneb," though we're quite sure they'll come up with something a little catchier by the time these products launch.

For more on the 45nm CPUs:
- see this ComputerWorld article

Dell set to roll out more AMD machines

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:59:57 -0500

Though they might have given us a bit of a scare a few weeks ago, it looks like Dell really is "committed to AMD" after all. When the company started pulling certain AMD-based systems from its website, many feared that Dell was planning to return to Intel exclusivity. However, spokespeople for the company denied the rumors, reiterating Dell's commitment to AMD. Looks like it wasn't just talk: tgdaily is reporting that Dell will be one of the first vendors to launch systems with AMD's new tri-core chips. The new systems will be aimed squarely at IT buyers and will fall under the "Optiplex" business desktop brand when they're announced in the coming days. If that's not enough for the AMD fan in you, you'll be happy to hear that Dell will follow up the enterprise systems with new AMD-based consumer machines later in the year.

For more on the rumored systems:
- see this story from tgdaily

Intel discontinuing Merom CPUs

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:59:56 -0500

If you support Merom-based systems that might need replacement CPUs at some point, take heed: Intel has issued a product change notification (PCN) that details a few chip discontinuations:

The T5500, T5600, T7200, T7600 and LV L7200 CPUs will ship until July 27, 2009.
The T7400 and LV L7400 CPUs will ship until July 26, 2009.
Additionally, the Celeron M 520 and 530 CPUs will ship until January 26, 2009.
Bulk orders for all of these chips must be placed by May 26, 2008.

For more on the PCN:
- see this tgdaily article

More restructuring at IBM

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 06:59:59 -0500

There's an old saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." That is not always the case, especially with IT. IBM, for one, announced a new plan last week to improve company performance and deliver what customers want. Will it work? It may be the umpteenth time that this big company has revamped.

In IBM's case, it decided to realign its Systems and Technology group around types of clients. So, what is the big deal? The restructured division will focus and develop products based on customer needs in different segments. And the restructured division targets four segments--large enterprises; small-and-medium businesses; verticals; and microelectronics, which includes customers buying IBM's chips, according to IBM spokesman Tim Breuer. Will this deliver better service to you and other customers? Or is this a case of smoke and mirrors? We'd like to hear what you think and whether this helps the CIO trying to come up with the best way to operate and to do it more efficiently. Let us know.

For more on Big Blue and its changing structure:
- Read this InfoWorld article

The CIO's job is about change

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:59:56 -0500

If you have too much work and wish to lose some of it, remember that old saying: be careful what you wish for. There are plenty of efforts underway to decentralize the CIO's operation, outsource the work and shrink the scope of the position. Or your CEO may decide to push IT work into other business units. And that may not be the best way for you to operate effectively or for the CIO operation to be successful. If the decision is already made by your CEO, the best advice may be to say, "How can I help?" It may be that you aren't fired, but your job duties shrink. In any event, flexibility is the name of the game. The CIO's job is a moving target. How to save money is the first order of business at any level.

Also remember that someone who is successful in a centralized management structure may not be a good fit with a decentralized one. And no matter how the operation is revised, decentralization might be a good way for you to learn a new experience so you are a win-win employee regardless where the chips fall.

For more about the changing CIO job:
- See this Computerworld Article

ALSO NOTED: The CIO wish list; Tips for that job interview;

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:59:58 -0500

> The CIO wish list. Article
> Tips for that job interview. Article
> Chips are on the way up. Article
> Top 10 data breaches of 2007. Article
> Bill Gates: Value tech skills. Article
> Top 10 software stories of 2007. Article
> Take this quiz: Are you a strategic CIO? Article

And Finally... BlackBerrys play ball. Article